Sex, Sexuality, and Sensuality
September 22, 2008
Sexuality is much more than just one concept, as most of you probably realize. It includes several components that interact to determine how you function sexually in society. It is important to understand the central concepts behind what we tend to globally group into the common term “sexuality” in order to fully understand and appreciate your sex life as I see it.
The term “sex” as used by most people refers to the actual mechanics of sexual intercourse. For some people this will include the precursors such as kissing, making out, foreplay, and all of the other activities that actually lead up to penetrative sexual intercourse. For others, it simply refers to the act of intercourse. When someone asks you if you’ve “had sex” your first thoughts are, most likely, of you and your partner in some form of missionary sex position going at it like a couple of banshees! You and your partner must come to an agreement on what “sex” means to your relationship. There are a variety of philosophical arguments about whether oral sex is “sex” for example (thanks Bill!). Only the two of you can determine that for your relationship.
The term “sexuality” itself is misused quite a bit. The word actually refers to the social, emotional and spiritual components that identify you sexually, and represents the psychological aspects of your sexual identity. It includes such things as how you perceive your body sexually, how you choose to interact with others sexually, your philosophy on intimacy and emotional involvement within the context of sex, and your own personal limits on what you find acceptable in terms of sexual activity. Think of it as your sexual character!
Some people use the term incorrectly to characterize their sexual orientation. If they’re asked, “What is your sexuality?” (by someone who also does not understand the term), they’d reply with something on the order of, “I’m straight.” This is an incorrect usage – see the section on sexual orientation below.
Everyone has a “sexual identity.” Your sexual identity determines how you interact sexually with others as you proceed through life, and is a global term used to describe your gender identity, your gender role, and your sexual orientation.
For most people, their “gender identity”, or sense of “maleness” or “femaleness,” is pretty clear cut and develops as they grow up. There are some instances where this may not develop according to what society considers “normal,” however. For instance, some parents raise their daughters as tom boys, which means that they have what many consider to be more masculine attributes (i.e., the way they dress, being involved in competitive sports, etc.), and they appear to have lost what many consider to be some attributes that normally identify females. This is true for boys as well, in the opposite direction of course, and may or may not cause issues as one grows up.
In some instances, a person’s gender identity is in conflict with his/her biological identity (as determined by the physical attributes of their body). This is referred to as being “transgendered,” and dealing with this can lead to a lot of emotional conflict, especially as one grows through puberty and adolescence. In some instances these people will go on to have gender reassignment surgery to “fix” themselves and make them into the sex that they feel they are emotionally, but for many others this is never a real option .
“Gender roles” are those societal definitions of what “boys do” and what “girls do” as they move through life. For example, only females are supposed to wear dresses, or only males are supposed to wear their hair closely cropped; women are supposed to be in the kitchen, men are supposed to work to support the family. Fortunately, we’re getting away from the narrow constructs that have defined those roles in the past, despite organizations who’d like to see us stay cemented to those antiquated definitions of what men and women are “supposed to do.”
“Sexual orientation” is a term used to characterize who you generally prefer to have sexual relations with. Heterosexuals prefer to have sex with someone of the opposite gender, homosexuals (also called “gays” [male and female] or “lesbians” [females only]) prefer to have sex with someone of the same gender, and bisexuals are people who are able to enjoy sexual activity with someone of either gender. Your sexual orientation is one of the more visible components of your overall “sexuality.”
And while most people will identify themselves as being one of the three, sociobiologist Alfred Kinsey determined in his studies of the late 1950s that just about everyone was bisexual to one degree or another, and developed a sliding scale he used to represent a continuum that one could move across as they re-evaluated their sexuality through time. (Fritz Klein developed his own scale that expanded upon Kinsey’s, by the way.)
“Intimacy” is another term that you should be familiar with. The term represents the emotional investment you make in or with someone else, along with your ability and willingness to share your emotions with another person, care for them, and the extent to which it can be said that you “like” someone. Any investment involves risk, and emotional risk is always a huge factor when you are forming an intimate bond with another person. As you become more intimate with someone, whether it leads to a sexual relationship or not, you open yourself up to vulnerability. Therefore, the development of intimacy with another person is a huge step in any relationship.
For most people, the development of intimacy with another person is required before the development of a sexual relationship. For others, however, this is not necessarily true. Some people do not place as high a value on the emotional attachment to someone else if they are in a relationship strictly for the sexual aspects of it. Only the individuals involved can determine whether this is the right path to follow or not.
“Sensuality” is an awareness and feeling about your own body and other people’s bodies, especially the bodies of potential sexual partners. Sensuality is what enables you to feel good about how your body looks and feels and what it can do sexually. It involves such things as how you perceive your body (body image), how you process and react to sexual attraction and sexual tension involving other people, and how you enjoy and react to the senses during interpersonal interaction with someone else. Another major component of sensuality is called “skin hunger,” which is a term used to describe your desire to be touched, held, and caressed. If you have not already done so, you will find this to be one of the more satisfying aspects of a physical relationship.
Sensuality also describes how your body physically and emotionally reacts to inputs from the various senses associated with your body. When you become intimately involved with someone, you will find that there are unique sounds, smells, feelings (in this case, physically), sights, and even tastes associated with the interaction with that other person. If you learn to pay attention to and enjoy those sensations, you will heighten your ability to enjoy your sexuality by several magnitudes. For example, if you learn to discern the smell that lingers after your own intense sexual encounters, you will get to the point where you can literally pick up on the fact that someone else has had sex when they walk into a room! Seriously!
Sensuality derives from the brain’s concept of your own sexuality and the fantasies that you allow it to entertain. You will occasionally hear someone refer to the brain as the body’s greatest sex organ, and this is the basis for that claim. Sex is, in reality, just as much a mental exercise as it is a physical one. Mastering the physical aspects of sex is relatively easy. Anyone can learn a sex position, or a new technique. Allowing yourself to harness the power of your brain to process the emotional and spiritual aspects of a sexual encounter, however, and applying them such that both of you become enveloped in the experience with all of your senses will elevate your sex to an entirely new level, guaranteed!
As you can see, there is *so* much more to the concept of what makes you a “sexual being” than just the physical act of sex itself. If you learn to understand these, and apply them to your relationships with other people, you will find that your life experience will be much richer than those who do not. If you have not already done so, sit back and think about how these concepts define you, and how you can make use of this information to improve your sexuality.
Now, having said all of that, my favorite clients are those who come to the experience knowing who they are sexually - they’re just fun to be sexual with. That is rare, of course, just as it is in the general population, so I don’t experience it terribly often. The fact of the matter is that I very much enjoy helping people explore avenues of their sexual being that they haven’t had the opportunity to investigate as well. Usually this manifests itself in a lack of desire or willingness to ask their significant other to indulge them or engage them in some activity. Rimming is a good example.
Butt…I’ll be writing an article on rimming in the not too distant future, though, so I won’t bore you with those details right now. 
Posted by Alexa | Filed Under Sexuality
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5 Responses to “Sex, Sexuality, and Sensuality”
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Intriguing and inspiring.. as usual.
Thank you!
Very clear and methodical.
Yea Rimming!
Have you had any lady clients recently? Don’t remember hearing about them?
No, I haven’t, Lee. I haven’t had any female clients at all at this point.